


sunset in a spider web

by Anonymous



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Fluff, Kissing, Korean Mythology, Old Gods, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:22:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27313300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: “Tell me.” Donghyuck steps forward and takes Jisung’s face into his hands again, holding lightly, his touch almost breeze. “Tell me what you need, and I will give it to you.”This,Jisung thinks.All I have ever needed, is this.Instead, he says, “Please, don’t let me go.”
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Park Jisung
Comments: 12
Kudos: 42
Collections: Anonymous





	sunset in a spider web

**Author's Note:**

> # re-post from a while back (august)  
> # bipa = a korean instrument like the lute or pipa

War isn’t far, now.

The ships break over the horizon an incense stick after first light, bringing with them a sky metal-grey and hulls weighed down with unshed blood. Jisung had learned them, then, by the sound of the warning bells, but Donghyuck had seen them long before—days and months and years before. Centuries, and a time even more inconceivable than that.

“It came to me in a dream,” Donghyuck says, speaking wistfully but with what Jisung knows is the heart and finality of truth.

For while Jisung had never taken Donghyuck as a poet, he knows him as poetry, all of his lines drawn with the lilt of rhyme, reciting memory as though it were song: heron taking flight over waters made iron-rich; the jade rails of the water garden burning like mutton fat; knuckles of bamboo, and peach trees buckling, emptied of leaves.

Verse. Bridge. Refrain.

“Which means, of course, we must eat them.” Jisung laughs, strangled. “Isn’t that cheating fate?” 

“They will be gone regardless. I have seen it to be true. What difference does it make, in our stomach, or theirs?” Donghyuck reaches up through the trees to pick a fruit. He weighs it in his palm, thumb bruising pink skin. Holds it out. “You should eat, Jisung-ah.” 

Jisung’s hand twitches like it  _ wants,  _ and then does not stop shaking. He curls it into a fist, hides it behind his back. “I have no appetite,” he says.

Donghyuck’s eyes narrow under his bamboo hat. “Oh? Not even for this?” He brings the peach to his lips and takes a slow, purposeful bite.

The wet sound of fruit parting under teeth. Golden juice running down his wrist, glossed over lips. A bee that has missed the last blossoms stirred by its fragrance. 

Donghyuck drops the peach to the grass and rushes forward, his hat tipping back, and it seems that all of summer follows him in turn. 

He cups Jisung’s face in his hands, still sticky with juice, and presses their lips together. There is nothing refined about it. It’s a dirty, messy kiss, but still sweet; peach sweet, summer sweet. Petal soft. And Jisung can only gasp into it. 

The hand behind his back no longer hides how he shakes. It’s full-bodied, now: in his lungs, in his legs, in his toes that dig through the soil, uprooting water and stone and splinters of pine. Grass made graveland. He shuts his eyes against it but the images still run clear: a dream, a memory, an omen. 

What is the difference when it in the end it will hold true? 

“Sweetheart. Oh, Jisung, sweetheart, please don’t cry.” Donghyuck smooths the pad of his thumb over Jisung’s skin, frowning in concern. “Were my kisses really that bad?” 

_ “Disgusting,  _ hyung,” Jisung says, and as he speaks his tongue licks over his lips, tasting sweetness, tasting salt. His face crumples. “...Really disgusting.” 

The tears do not stop coming. Donghyuck gathers him in his arms as if to hold him together, but the fear has been building for hours, now. A wave slowly gaining height as it approaches shore, filling his lungs and salting his tongue. Jisung is bursting with it. There is no space for anything else, no space for air, and Jisung is left gasping and shuddering as the pressure inside him builds and builds and—

“Breathe. Jisung, look at me. You have to breathe, okay? I’ve got you. I’m here.  _ I’ve got you.”  _

He speaks with unshakeable certainty and Jisung should believe him, for when it comes to Donghyuck he has never so much as dared to hold anything against him but faith. Yet, faith does not change the reality that there is war on the horizon, soon to make landfall. Faith does not change that Donghyuck is still bound by duty and divinity. 

Despair crashes over him and he stumbles back with the force of it, out of Donghyuck’s grasp. 

Donghyuck watches him step away, his hand stretched out to reach for him, but as Jisung retreats, he brings it to his side. There’s a shattered expression on his face. Jisung hates seeing it, hates knowing that he is the one who put it there, but he doesn’t know what else to do. 

“I—” he begins but the words are still choked with tears. He doesn’t— he can’t—

Donghyuck doesn’t move towards him. He remains stood under the shade of the peach tree, a half-eaten fruit weeping at his feet. Says, “Jisung,” in a voice that is achingly tender. More than he deserves. 

Jisung’s voice breaks with garbled effort, but Donghyuck is patient. “Afraid,” he chokes out. “Hyung, I’m  _ afraid.” _

Donghyuck looks away from him, then, only briefly. Casts his eyes over to the sea. Helpless pity as he says, “I know,” even though he can’t. Even though he won’t have to—

“Please,” Jisung cries, his voice made entirely of desperation. “I need…”

“Tell me.” Donghyuck steps forward. Takes Jisung’s face into his hands again, holding lightly, his touch almost breeze. “Tell me what you need, and I will give it to you.”

_ This,  _ Jisung thinks.  _ All I have ever needed, is this.  _

Instead, he says, “Please, don’t let me go.” 

The hands around his face tremble and then go stiff. Jisung cannot bear to look at him. All he can see is the grass. The dew. Shards of reflections of the sky. Heron. 

“You know,” Donghyuck says, stricken. “You know that a god cannot meddle in human affairs.”

The words are twisting knives, and Jisung gives a small, breathless sob. The war hasn’t even begun and yet all the fight has left his body. He nods and his head lolls, spine snapped clean, no support but for Donghyuck bracing him, scrabbling for something to say to salvage this. 

There’s no use. He is too young, too weak. Has only used a weapon to train, never to kill. He’s never— 

he never— 

they never had a chance— 

“Jisung! You have to  _ breathe,  _ okay? Like this. In and out. Slowly, gently.” Donghyuck guides with one hand laid on his chest to calm the tremors and Jisung struggles to match his rhythm. Regardless, Donghyuck smiles, and it’s that if anything that helps ground him. “That’s it. You’re doing so well. Focus on me, okay? Follow my breathing.”

Jisung closes his eyes and concentrates on the briny air and the sound of Donghyuck’s voice. 

Time has always been fraught between them, but now Donghyuck speaks as if it is endless, his words honey-slow and sweetened like he’s never known fear. And it almost makes Jisung believe that this is a dream. That the incense has not yet burned through. That the ships do not know horizon. That, for the first time, Donghyuck was  _ wrong,  _ and what he saw was neither dream nor memory nor omen, but nightmare, something dark and shadowy and twisted—something that could not, will not, come true. 

He opens his eyes and sees Donghyuck standing there, real. His stomach drops.

“Better?” Donghyuck asks. 

Jisung exhales. “Yes. Thank you.” 

It’s a lie, one that Donghyuck is quick to catch. He observes Jisung with conflict on his face, and sighs. “Jisung-ah—”

“Hyung, you’ve done enough. It’s alright. You don’t have to. You shouldn’t have to.” 

“I want to,” he protests. “Please, Jisung. Let me do this for you.” 

Jisung does not know what he means, but he nods anyway. When Donghyuck sees that he will not resist, he drops his hands from Jisung’s face and instead reaches back to the bipa hanging across his back, the pear-shaped swell of its body and unplucked strings heavy and overripe. 

Jisung laughs, though it comes out tight and tinny. “You’re going to sing, hyung? Your voice is lovely, but— Oh.” 

Donghyuck grasps the bipa by the neck and swings it over his shoulder in a wide arc that eclipses the sun, and all of a sudden, it is no longer a bipa, but a sword, the blade as long as a body. Its tip crashes into the ground and Jisung staggers back out of its reach. 

Oblivious to Jisung’s shock, Donghyuck turns the sword over in his hand, handling its weight with ease. 

“Have I ever shown you, Jisung?” he asks. “Have you ever heard? They write songs about this, you know. Stories.”

“Stories?” Jisung splutters, though he’s unable to hide the awe in his voice, unable to tear his eyes away from the sword, his mind still reeling to reconcile the bipa, the blade, wood made metal: a blatant disregard of the order of elements. “Your ego is boundless. Someone needs to take a shot at you, make you humble again.” 

“Only the night humbles the sun, sweetheart. Now look. Hold out your hand.” 

Jisung holds his palm up and as he does, Donghyuck spins the blade around, holding out the hilt. So close that Jisung can feel its divine pull. He blinks at it and then looks up at Donghyuck. Wraps his fingers around the hilt.

The sword  _ sings.  _

Power rushes up his fingertips and percolates through his body, taking root in his bones, making a home there. Too much, suddenly. It doesn’t belong. He is bursting with it, with this restless energy. Opens his mouth as though it will spill from him; a cup of rice wine overflowing, a fruit too grown for its fickle skin. A sun too big for the sky. The blade seems to glow, wisps of surplus power like spun gold curling around the metal. 

Jisung drops the sword. His grip is still tight around the hilt, but the blade is too heavy. It sinks like a dead weight into the ground, pulling Jisung’s entire body down with it, and for a terrible breath, he fears that the very ground beneath them will crumble and collapse. 

He does not have Donghyuck’s effortless, spiritual strength; all he has is years of sweat and endeavour. Still, it is not enough. The strain in his back is beginning to fracture, and he wants nothing more than to drop the sword to allow himself relief, but he can’t. His reverence won’t allow it.

Jisung wonders how he hadn’t realised it sooner. 

He knows this sword. How could he not? Donghyuck himself had said that they write songs about it. Stories. 

This is a blade forged with the soul of a heavenly beast and tempered with the graces of wisdom, prosperity, and immortality. Jisung can feel it, now, how its power rumbles deep in his bones like the turn of the Earth. How it roars with a majesty that no human can ever hope to understand. 

“A sword of dragon light,” Jisung says, breathless.

“Yes. And now it is yours if you will have it.” 

Jisung looks up. Donghyuck stands with his hands clasped behind his back, and without the bipa, without this sword, he looks—smaller, sadder. Cowed by the veneer of mortality. 

“No. I cannot take this. It belongs to you.” Jisung attempts to push the sword towards Donghyuck, but it catches on the ground and refuses to move. Frustration builds. The ragged edges of a rock snaring, burning with friction. He sighs and tries again but Donghyuck lays a steadying hand over his.

“I want you to have it,” Donghyuck says, his eyes lowered. Almost shy. “You  _ should _ have it. I’ve made no use of it, these past hundred years. But this— Jisung, for you, this could—” 

Anger surges through him, taking the path of least resistance. He snaps.

“Hyung, I  _ can’t! _ It’s too much. I can barely lift it. You can because you’re a  _ god, _ but this sword… it isn’t made for people like me.”

“People like you?” Donghyuck frowns. “Jisung-ah—”

“Don’t you see? This is just another thing I can’t have.” 

Donghyuck looks down at Jisung’s threadbare hold around the hilt, his knuckles bled white with exertion. His eyes widen with realisation. “Oh. The sword is stubborn, but it can be tamed. You can learn. You’re so clever, I know you can do it, I know you can—”

“Learn? How long do you think we have, hyung? You know what is to come. You’ve seen it all before.”

At this, Donghyuck’s body goes slack and he makes a terrible, punched out sound, like Jisung has just run him through with the sword. He doesn’t stumble, but he sways in place, like he’s not sure if he’s on land or sea. 

As Jisung watches him flounder, the last vestiges of anger disappear. “Hyung,” he calls out, and waits until Donghyuck’s eyes focus back on him. “You don’t have to do this.” 

“But you  _ asked.”  _

“I know. It was— That was unfair of me. We all have our duties, and this is mine.” 

His words are pointed, and Donghyuck frowns as if they were edging on cruel, but he keeps silent. Lips pressed thin, he takes the sword back. 

“Duty,” he muses. “Jisung, for you, I would… but that would be unfair, wouldn’t it?” He smiles, sardonic, and then raises the sword over his shoulder, where between one blink and the next, it turns back into a bipa. The strings clatter out a discordant whine as they strike against his back. “You’re right. We cannot shirk our duty. But if you will, there is one more thing I can give you. A gift.” 

Jisung’s eyes flit to the bipa. “A gift?”

“One that I can freely give. And one you will like, I hope.” 

Donghyuck steps forward into Jisung’s space and the air around them seems to warm, smelling of peaches and freshly baked bread. Jisung clings to the flimsy fabric of his robes as if he could gather that scent in hands, hold it tight and never let it go.

“Alright,” he says. 

Donghyuck sighs in relief. “Good. Now close your eyes for me.” 

“How am I meant to see your gift with my eyes closed?” Jisung asks, just because he knows it will bring a smile to Donghyuck’s face. And it does. But it also makes him pinch Jisung’s cheek and chide, “Quiet,” in a voice that is only faintly tinged with exasperation. Jisung shuts his eyes. 

He feels Donghyuck lean in closer, and then the rasp of a shaven chin against the skin of his cheek, soothed over by a kiss. One, dewy kiss. Jisung opens his mouth to snark at him, but then Donghyuck trails his lips up to brush a kiss over the tip of his nose. Up further to kiss between his eyes in a way that makes his skin tingle. And at last, he presses a final kiss on the centre of his forehead, gentle and warm, a pleasant, calming heat that floods through his body and bubbles like seafoam. 

Jisung opens his eyes. He’s sure he can see it—the warmth. He is made of it entirely. It must spill from him like dragon light, curling and snaring on all his rough edges. 

“There,” Donghyuck says, stepping back. “Now you are favoured by the sun god.” 

“Haven’t I always been?” Jisung asks. The laugh it pulls from Donghyuck’s mouth is bright and full. 

“Brat. Do you even need to ask?” Again, he pinches Jisung’s cheek, the crescent moon of his nail pressing an imprint into the skin. “But now it is spoken aloud. I am yours, as long as you will have me.”

Jisung’s eyes prickle with heat, but he is quick to blink the tears away. He will not let this moment be washed away. It will remain in his memory clearly, until it becomes so innate that he can recite it as song, for soon, the final warning bell will toll, and Jisung will have to leave, but he will not forget. 

He will carry with him the taste of peaches on his tongue, and the sound of heron as they flutter their wings. And whether the war is won or lost, he will know power. A sword weighed down with the ache of three thousand years. The saltgrind turn of the Earth. A god, who loved so deeply he gave himself up to a boy whose fate was written long before. 

Because that is power, Jisung thinks. He can feel it in his chest, spinning around like a restless sun. A part of Donghyuck that now belongs to him. 

It hurts. It sings. The quiet echo of an unwritten song. 

  
  



End file.
